


Taffy

by peonydee



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sorry Not Sorry, Voyeurism, unsolicited ficlet drafted on someone's fb messenger window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonydee/pseuds/peonydee
Summary: his Wraith still haunts periodically. sometimes, she's even really there.





	Taffy

Nothing ruins the good name of a barrel boss than word of charitable acts. The involvement of the Dregg’s sinister boss with the anti-slavers crusade of the notorious Captain Ghafa is nothing less than good business, but it is the involvement of Kaz Brekker with Inej Ghafa that tends to sully his good name, even at their most discreet, so much so that the very residents of the Barrel wonder what hold the privateer has over the boss. The stories are as lurid and varied as the fashion disasters of those parts, the most plausible of which being that she is blackmailing him with evidence that can indict him for slave trading and sink him to the most miserable dungeon in Hellgate, only another of the Wraith’s Barrel converts. Thank Inej’s set of pointed Saints, noone has yet identified her smile as the lever to the machine.

Not all of the rescued slaves have homes to return to, and they end up in Ketterdam as often as not. Providing jobs and homes to Inej’s strays provides labor for Kaz’s multitude of business ventures and tenants for his recent expansion into real estate. He doesn’t mind his reputation of providing fair contracts to both workers and indentures, but it has increasingly necessitated him to demonstrate his disapproval of being cheated. It is his policy to make such visitations in person: the lore of Dirtyhands won’t live on without a steady stream of witnesses, plenty of broken bones, and a sprinkling of corpses.

Kaz Brekker drags himself up the countless flights of stairs to his domicile, body screaming with each lurch and step after a hard day’s work of seeing to his gang and business. Before he has even bolted the door, he starts divesting his clothes, neatly hanging his suit and bending down to deposit his shirt and smallclothes in a laundry sack. He washes with cold water and a clean rag, meticulously scrubbing every inch of his skin. One might mistake his slow deliberate movements for a striptease, but he is preoccupied by a mental accounting of today’s transactions, often interrupted by the sharp pain of certain movements.

After his toilette and mathematics, he lays in bed, not bothering to dress, bad leg propped up on pillows and a light sheet over him, cane, gun, and gloves within reach. He might not wake up with all the aches healed, but getting a night’s sleep clean and in his bed makes the prospect of another day of pain bearable. Sleep is a commodity and shouldn’t be wasted. He blanks his mind, allows himself to unwind enough to reach for sleep.

His own propensity for seeking entrances through rooftops does not delude him into treating his rooms on top of the Slat as some fortress, but it is private, well-aerated, and providing a great view. It also makes periodic hauntings convenient for his Wraith. Her presence is indelible here; memories and imagination make quick work of summoning her, of quickening the only part of him left to tire out. There had been a time when their continuing association hinged on his inability to allow her closer to him, physically as well as emotionally, but these nights, imagining Inej is a more effective sleeping draught than the most potent drugs in the market.

He left his bedroom door open deliberately, so he can glimpse the splash of moon reflected from the canals below undulating on the ceiling above the windows in his old office. He cannot quite make out his Wraith’s perch, but he can see the inky maw of the window, see her alighting there, a shadow amidst other shadows.

She might sit briefly to look out at her city, maybe look towards where her ship is docked maybe, maybe not, trace the arrow’s path. Then she’ll rise, go to his toilette, procure an unused rag, and clean up as well, echoing his earlier movements. There isn’t enough moonlight to blue the golden brown of her skin being efficiently exposed. He promises to look his fill later, once sunlight returns, for her graceful movements look their loveliest, liveliest under the tinge of dawn. And more immediately, he promises her phantom his touch, tentative at first, so his claws won’t disappear the gossommer of his fantasies, so his nightmares won’t come crashing like a too ambitious wave thwarting his hand-carved dike. Those waters have abated, steadily banished by the repetitive pump of affirmation: she lives, she lives, she is free and she lives.

His soap is strong and scentless—-he doesn’t need some musk to announce his presence when he needs it hidden—but it will not completely scrub the taste of the sea from her skin. Until only recently, she visits Wylan and Jesper’s home first, for their reunion is relaxed and predictable: group hugs, a warm bath and comfortable clothes, a dinner with song and dance, coal heated mattress and down beddings. Kaz drops in when his schedule allows and his first taste of her is laced with the rare spices of a merchant’s kitchen, with the tingle of after-dinner chocolate mints, with the floral perfume of her bathwater. But then the need to see her first asserted itself over time, though she is kind enough not to mention the concession to his face and the knowing looks in their friends’ eyes when they start visiting the Golden District together are startlingly gratified.  
  
And so it is that the ocean ceased to taint her skin. Instead, it is her smell and taste that masters the memories that override his sensorium from the slightest suggestion of that night he died, of that morning he was regurgitated by the filth of harbor waters. They are sensations transmuted by the same sun that gloriously deepens her bronze and highlights her hair, by winds that fill her sails, by the wood pitch that safeguards her hull. Kaz hardens more at that thought, tasting brine and tar with his memory’s tongue, but he doesn’t touch himself yet.

He imagines her drift from his toilette, eventually, leaving her clothes where she had divested them. She prepares too for these meetings, in her own way, perhaps gathering herself into a constrained whole, make sure she was completely and firmly there before she comes to him. She’ll start unwinding her braids, even as she starts removing her knives, leaving a trail of them to his bedside. He’ll have a clearer view of her and her of him, but he waits till their eyes meet before he lazily, deliberately, moves a hand to his hilt.

His fingers pause—-why settle for imagination?

“Free show ends here,” Kaz rasps into the shadows beside him. “Come.

“You’re going to have to put in some work before we come, you know,” she says softly.

“Some work,” he concedes. “Mostly pleasure.”

Despite their light banter, it takes a few more moments before the bed dips and her touch feathers tentatively about his jaw.

And despite himself, the clamminess rakes down his body, twisting his bones benumbed and emptying his head of blood.

Then the moment passes and with his free hand he cups her hand to his face, letting its warmth sink and relax the ticking muscles to his jaw. His entwines their fingers and tugs lightly, coaxing her to him till he feels her entire length against him, the svelte slide of their skin electric. Her dark hair falls over him in waves as she leans over to press her lips against his. His tongue flickers out to invite her to deepen their kiss. She obliges briefly, but pulls back when he breaks from her to gasp for breath.

“Well,” she prompts. “How far will that get me?”

“One measly kiss?”

“Don’t underestimate my one measly kiss. There was a time that was all we could manage.”

Fine,” he drawls back. “In due deference to the One Measly Kiss, you can state your terms first.”

“If I hadn’t been here waiting for you for the past couple of hours—“

“You should have availed yourself a nap.”

“I did. Nice of you to offer but you’re obviously not insisting on one right now, full mast as you are.”

“The terms.”

“I want you to show me what would have happened next, if I haven’t been here.”

He nods once. Then, he turns, releases his tumescence, and pulls the light sheet over him. He murmurs their goodnight to his pillow.

She groans, not quite in disbelief, not quite exasperation, but a hapless amalgam of both. When he still makes no move to relieve himself, she wiggles her hand from his hold, shrugs under the sheet, and spoons against him. She drapes her freed arm over his waist, while the other burrows beneath his weight to meet with his again.

“I wonder what I could have gotten if I had kissed your other head.”

Kaz snorts. “Brine and bitterness.”

“Actually, your flavor bears an endearing hint of sweetness, Kaz Brekker.”

“Can’t get butter, if you don’t churn the cream.”

“Can’t get cream, if you don’t milk the cow.”

“Keep sharing your Suli proverbs and the udder will deflate.”

“Doesn’t feel that way right now.” She pauses. “It’s all right, you know. If you take care of it. I do it, too.”

“It’s worse after,” he disagrees. “I’m not satisfied.”

“Are you ever?”

“No.”

“Now about my terms...”

“I showed you.”

“I’ve been subsisting on my imagination for months, Kaz, I’m going to need a bit of fodder.”

He grunts, but she feels him stir and reach for the lamp beside him.

“No.” She pulls his arm back gently. “I don’t just want to watch you.”

Inej does not release his arm, even when he yields to her demands with nary a huff. The light pressure of her fingers remain on his forearm, even as he rolls back to his side, hand drifting down to grasp his shaft once more.

“Imagine it’s my hand.”

She has obviously gotten used to throwing orders around. He loosens his grip, withdraws his hold till it is just the pads of his fingers making contact with his member. Despite himself he hisses as he makes the first tentative brush against hypersensitive flesh. His fingers ghosts up and down his shaft a few times, each turn excruciatingly slow, tentative, before he thumbs the turgid head of his cock. The pearl of moisture he retrieves there makes it easier to slide up and down, provides lubrication between the calluses and rough pads of his fingers and the taut but veiny surface of him, as well as the few coils of coarse hair growing from his base.

How does she do it, he muses to himself, even as he returns his forefinger to fleshiest part of his head. Barely touching the fine sandpaper-like texture of his finger as he traces the tip of his glans, he nearly undoes himself when his nail grazes the opening.

Inej merely murmurs against his ear, “calmly, my love, slow,” the hand beneath him curling up to scratch distracting circles about his belly. The other hand remains over his working hand, a shadow that tracks every sleight or movement.

How does she do it, he repeats to himself.

Now that they’ve come to the point where they only took moments to heave aside their respective baggage, they didn’t have to tiptoe any longer to their ultimate joining. Of late, their first meetings after her prolonged stints asea explode in a frenzy of short, rough fucks, both desperate to fill the places in them so vacant of the other for so long. Even when he erupts as soon as she swirls her tongue over his head, he never has enough time to return the favor for long before his prick stiffens back to ready. She knows almost preternaturally when, sometimes dragging him up from between her legs a few moments before, letting the slick and heat of her fount to harden him all the way. And then he is rutting into her with the relentless hunger of the ocean, their grunts, gasps, and moans conjoined, consigned to the other sounds of the night.

He’ll always at least try for her. It makes her happy. Sometimes, he surprises himself when he exceeds the low bar of expectation he sets for them both. She is patient, but as he almost had to find out, not that patient.

Breathe in, breathe out. Narrow your focus, block out the unnecessary, filter your thoughts of the panic rising.

Someday, the lot of them would have to thank Wylan’s nameless tutor for that calming technique. Right now, he needs an anchor to steady himself.

There, he thinks, feeling the tiny twinned buds standing out from lithe smoothness of her, delicious gum drops atop a pair of perky buns, pressing against his back and side. He imagines the deeper chocolate around the gum drop, imagines the way they crinkle under his scrutiny, as his saliva dries from their peaks.

Calmer now, he resumes stroking his twitching member. If he can pick out dice face and card marks with his gloved hand, he can definitely master the unruly stirrings of his cock.

She starts _sotto voce_ , like her voice, her presence. She is just there or gone. His breath will catch in infinitesimal hitches—he keeps even his lust contained in a neat structure. Meeting her dark eyes with equanimity, he’ll watch as she licks her lips, parts them to an expectant oh, even as the pressure of her hands changes into a milking sensation.  
Her hands mimic the concentric tightenings, the invaginating heat of her mouth around him, then suddenly, a pinching grip about the most sensitive part of him and just as sudden, release. Her throat—-she is mimicking the movement of her throat around him.

Then she’ll grip him more evenly, sometimes with two hands, sometimes with her mouth fluttering about his tip. This is her mimicking the engulfing tightness of her core around his cock. This is her suckling just his head just as one hand slides down him, pressing against the base of him, wrist pressing his balls flat—the pucker of the portal to her womb delivering chastisement for his plunging too deeply. Then she’ll grip him even more tightly as her hands slide slowly up, pinching, the walls of her quim refusing to relinquish their quarry.

Behind him, the twin peaks of her breasts slides to his side, as she shifts herself to blanket more of him, leg coming up to slide down his thigh and calf.

“This is the part where you lose control, right?” She murmurs, even as she scatters kisses about his neck and ears.

He grunts in admission, gripping her hand tighter with his left and working his cock rougher with his right.

It doesn’t take much longer before she catches his soundless groans in her mouth, praying his name as he does hers. His climax hits, talons scraping from his groin and the base of his back, scattering his limbs, ripping up his spine and turning his skull inside out. When he comes down enough from his high to sense outside himself, he knows rather than feels that her right hand has joined his in stroking the last of his seed from his cock.

“Now that wasn’t so hard.”

“It wasn’t?” he manages through his ragged breathing.

“Well, it isn’t hard anymore.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“The milkmaid churning the cream.”

He snorts again, pausing to wipe himself and their hands on the towel she has evidently left there for the purpose. He turns to her and she meets him, tucking her head beneath his chin, tangling their bodies together in a way he would have never dreamed possible only a few years ago.

“Your turn,” he says once he has sated the need for oxygen.

“Later,” she promises.

“All that butter churned and you’re going to sleep hungry.”

“Oh, I’m satisfied right now. Hmm. Satiated.”

“I’m not.”

“You never are.”

“Well?”

“Get some rest, Kaz Brekker. I’ll treat you to waffles tomorrow.”

“If that’s not a euphemism for a proper fuck, I’m passing.”

“I’ll work you a proper appetite,” she promises. “Now, sleep.”

A risk, he thinks, but a necessary one. He will just have to trust that, come morning, she will not have disappeared, his wraith and phantom, finally a goddess whose tenets command his devotion, his goddess of life.

Once more, he murmurs their goodnight.

“Aim true, arrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> bless me, for i have sinned. 
> 
> for les, because she is one of the people who got miko into Six of Crows. (and because i was shamelessly hoping she'd write a sequel or something.)
> 
> miko didn't actually get me into the series (my sister's month-long harassment did), but i blame her for everything, anyway.


End file.
